The author wrote, “Like any student, I’ve had good teachers and bad teachers. Our schools are never going to be filled with only good teachers, but there is one lesson best taught by a bad teacher: The responsibility for one’s education can only be one’s own.”

He continues, “It’s an often-quoted fact that one of the greatest scientific and political minds this continent has produced only had two years of formal education. This trivia about Benjamin Franklin is sometimes used to point out his unique genius. However, Franklin’s genius is not unique. Why did one of 17 children of a candle and soap maker become so successful? As a child, Franklin quickly learned that nobody was going to do anything for him, and this was certainly true of his education. So he read.”

I love this story. But I think the writer makes a crucial error. Learning the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own education is not a lesson best delivered by a bad teacher through his incompetence; that’s a lesson best delivered by a great teacher through a nuanced understanding human development.

This, of course, requires a redefinition of what it means to be a great teacher. In my 12 years as a classroom teacher in traditional schools, I’ve always thought my job was to deliver academic content to students—as much as possible, in as much depth as possible. It’s hard to do that effectively when students are only there because they’re required to, and their primary motivation for completing my assignments is the fear getting a bad grade. To keep them engaged, I’ve had to crank up the charisma and the entertainment value of our 55-minute period. If I could keep them awake and engaged, I’ve always thought, hopefully they would learn some pieces of the lesson I was trying to impart.

Then, I could pat myself on the back for being a great teacher.

It’s a totally backwards way of looking at teaching and learning.

The best teachers don’t focus primarily on delivering academic content to a captive audience. The best teachers focus primarily on helping students understand this: the responsibility for one’s education can only be one’s own. That’s the gift that keeps on giving, even after the student has graduated and moved on to the next stage in life. When students have internalized that message, they can give up playing the game of school where they memorize things in the short term only to forget them three weeks later.

To do this in a traditional learning environment is a near-impossible task. Here’s a short scene that might give you a sense of what I mean:

TEACHER: Good morning class. I want to have a conversation with you guys about what it means to really own your learning process, to really take responsibility for it yourself.

STUDENT: Will there be a test on this?

The learning environment in a traditional school is dominated by requirements and extrinsic motivators. It’s not designed to teach students responsibility, maturity, or curiosity. Without responsibility, maturity, or curiosity, school for kids becomes a ritual in following directions and placating adults. In that kind of environment, expecting students to take charge of their education is really, really tall order.

The problem with our education system is not budget cuts, lazy students, or bad teachers. School is a design problem. For it to deliver the outcomes we desire, school needs to be redesigned based on a different set up assumptions.

Near the end of his opinion column, the author writes, “Every student is the craftsman of their own education, whether they realize it or not. We as students must dismiss the idea that we are entitled to a good education. We are not. . . . We must ensure for ourselves that we are well-educated.”

I don’t believe that for a second. Of course students are entitled to a good education. We just need to redefine what the words “good education” mean.

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3 Responses

This is what I love about my teaching situation (not that it is ideal, but this aspect of it is pretty fantastic)—I teach college level French classes and I am lucky in that, although I have to stick to a curriculum, how I lesson plan is usually up to me.

I usually see a lot of freshmen and sophomores. What I’m teaching them is grammar. But because what I am teaching is not content-based in the same way as a history class, they can talk about whatever they want, whatever interests them, whatever makes them tick—whether it is their major, or the TV show they are into at the moment, or their girlfriend, or their summer plans. But most of them use it as an excuse to take things into their own hands—they learn the vocab they need on their own so that they can talk about American football or agricultural reform or even neuroscience (of course, on a pretty basic French 101 level).

Although we are very much in a traditional classroom, full of motivated students, somehow this little bit of freedom to be themselves and connection to what they love pushes them to learn on their own (and not to forget what they’ve learned the day after the test). I don’t know how this can be carried over to other traditional subjects, but it has definitely made me realize how motivating the power of personal interest and connection can be, and how much, as I begin to teach in other areas, I need to find a way to carry it over.

Olivia, I’ve commented on a model to do this in history: specifically have everyone read a two page overview of the period in question, then pick a topic within that to research. Want to research sports in the 1880s? Go for it. Also by doing so students will learn about things tangentially related to their topic.

I consistently was a poor performer in English class in high school, but once I started writing on topics I cared about I got really damn good at composition. The literary analysis part I strengthened by watching movies, and reading books I liked.

There are ways to replicate your French class. (Albeit, French also gave me fits in school!)

Going off the idea of “crafting”, I think students would be more motivated if education were oriented towards crafting, rather than performing.
Replace the ideas of tests, memorization, grades with projects, creation, design.
I think all of the famous thinkers cited in the article dropped out of school because they wanted to build things, to use their creative energies.

Right now in education the driving force is the retributive fear of a bad grade.
Instead it could be something more positive.

Examples:
The necessity of chemistry and biology to build a hydroponic farm
The necessity of language to make a rap album

Kids want to do things and make things. I think this creative force could be a much more powerful driver than punishment and fear.